June 15, 1919: First Nonstop Flight Crosses Atlantic | WIRED June 15, 1919: First Nonstop Flight Crosses Atlantic subscribe 6 months for $5 - plus a FREE Portable Phone Charger. Author: Jason Paur. Jason Paur Date of Publication: 06.15.10. Time of Publication: 12:00 am. 12:00 am June 15, 1919: First Nonstop Flight Crosses Atlantic 1919: John Alcock and Arthur Brown land their Vickers Vimy airplane in a bog in Clifden, Ireland, marking the end of the first nonstop flight across the Atlantic. It’s a good bet to win a drink at a bar: “Do you know who was the first person to fly across the Atlantic in an airplane, nonstop?” Most takers think it’s Charles Lindbergh. But the true answer is the kind of knowledge only the most die-hard aviation geeks would know: Alcock and Brown.

In 1913, the British newspaper the Daily Mail offered a prize of 10,000 pounds sterling (about $1.1 million in today’s money) to the first aviator to cross the Atlantic. But World War I intervened the following year before anybody could make an attempt, and the competition was suspended. In reality, it was unlikely anybody could have made the crossing in 1913. But by the end of the war, aviation technology had improved significantly. In late 1918, the competition to fly across the Atlantic resumed and stipulated the flight must be made in less than 72 hours. With fighting still fresh in the minds of the British, a new rule prevented teams of “enemy origin” to enter. By the spring of 1919, several teams had gathered in St. Johns, Newfoundland, vying to be the first to cross the Atlantic and collect the prize. There were so many teams that Alcock and Brown had a difficult time finding a suitable field they could use as a runway for their flight. There were no airports in the area.

The Vickers Vimy airplane they had prepared for the attempt back in England was still en route by steamship, and other teams had already set up camp at the best locations. The Vickers Vimy was a large airplane for the time. The twin engine bomber was developed for use in World War I, but it wasn’t ready until after the war had ended, and it never saw combat over Europe. With a wingspan of more than 67 feet, the biplane was powered by a pair of 12-cylinder Rolls-Royce engines producing 360 horsepower each. The airplane used for the record-setting attempt was modified by removing the bomb racks and adding extra fuel tanks, so it could carry 865 gallons for the flight. The pilot and navigator sat in an open cockpit at the front of the airplane. By mid-May, one of the rival teams had flown nearly 20 hours east across the ocean before engine troubles forced the crew to ditch at sea. Fortunately, the plane crashed near a ship that was able to rescue the two-man crew. Another attempt at the prize ended in a crash before the airplane was even able to get airborne. The Vickers Vimy arrived in Newfoundland on May 26.

Two teams had failed to make the crossing, and the prize was still up for grabs, as was some good real estate for a suitable runway. The team was allowed to use a small field to assemble the airplane, but it was not long enough for the heavily fuel-laden airplane to take off. The Vimy arrived in 13 crates and was assembled in a large canvas tent in just two weeks. At the same time the airplane was being assembled, Alcock had found a suitable takeoff field. Groups of people worked to clear rocks and fill ditches to make it smooth enough for use as a runway. After a few days waiting out bad weather, the decision was made to fuel the airplane at its new field and make an attempt for the first nonstop crossing of the Atlantic. (A U.S. Navy Curtiss seaplane had flown from Newfoundland to Portugal in May, after a 10-day stop in the Azores.) After a few last-minute repairs to fix a broken landing gear that failed under the weight of the fuel, Alcock and Brown lifted off from Lester’s Field on the afternoon of June 14. Brown radioed the message, “All well and started,” to announce they had begun their journey.

Unfortunately, it would be the first and last radio message the crew would make. The wind-powered generator failed shortly after, and the duo was left without a radio for the remainder of the flight. Using a sextant and a drift-bearing plate, Brown was able to determine their position as they flew. Shortly after the radio went out, fog covered the sea, so he could not determine their drift. A haze developed, and he was unable to use the sextant to determine their location. At night approached, Brown urged Alcock to climb above the clouds so he could use the stars to get a fix on their position. It was good news: He calculated they were averaging 106 miles per hour, faster than they had planned. But soon they flew into another bank of clouds, and Alcock became disoriented and lost control of the aircraft. The airspeed indicator had been stuck and Alcock didn’t realize the airplane was slowing down. Eventually it stalled and entered a spin . They lost more than 4,000 feet as they spiraled toward the North Atlantic.

Breaking out of the clouds at around 100 feet, Alcock was able to recover from the spin and with very little room to spare, leveled off and continued flying east toward Ireland. The weather did not improve, and rain turned to snow as they flew farther east. Ice covered the airplane, and Brown had to frequently stand up in the open cockpit and clear ice and snow from the instrument sensors which were outside the cockpit. Eventually, the ice covered the air intake of one of the engines. Alcock decided to shut the engine down before the backfiring could destroy it. Descending into warmer air, the duo hoped the ice would melt before they hit the water. At around 500 feet, they broke into clear skies and were able to restart the engine. It seemed nothing more could go wrong with their flight, and sure enough less than half an hour after restarting the engine, Alcock and Brown spotted solid land. They had reached Ireland. In a less-than-ceremonious landing, Alcock put the plane down in a bog he had mistaken for a smooth field. The wheels dug in, and the plane tipped onto its nose.

With a gentle crash at 8:40 a.m., they completed the first nonstop flight across the Atlantic. Accounts vary, but the flight of approximately 1,890 miles across the shortest part of the Atlantic had taken around 16 hours, averaging roughly 118 mph. They were awarded the prize money in London by the British Secretary of State for War and Air, Winston Churchill. They were later knighted by King George V. Over the course of the next several years, many more pilots would fly airplanes across the Atlantic, and even more would cross in airships . Different teams flew different routes between North America and Europe. Eventually in 1927, Charles Lindbergh would make his historic flight between New York and Paris to win the Orteig Prize. It was the first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic and the first to link the two major cities. Lindbergh was, however, the 19th person to cross the Atlantic in an airplane. Pilots Steve Fossett and Mark Rebholz recreated the flight of Alcock and Brown in a replica Vickers Vimy in 2005.

Source: Various 1919: The First Non-stop Flight Across the Atlantic | History.info 14.06. 1919: The First Non-stop Flight Across the Atlantic Photo Credit To Wikipedia Commons/Alcock and Brown made the first transatlantic flight in 1919. They took off from St. John's, Newfoundland Story Highlights Historical event 14 June 1919 They flew a Vickers Vimy bomber, powered by two Rolls-Royce Eagle 360 hp engines. Those were V-12 engines, the first aircraft engines to be developed by Rolls-Royce. On this day two pilots took off from Canada towards Ireland on the first continuous flight across the Atlantic Ocean. The British aviators in question were John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown, and they were piloting a World War I-era Vickers Vimy bomber (the war had ended only seven months earlier), which was modified for the purpose of such a long flight without stopping. The Vickers Vimy bomber was powered by two Rolls-Royce Eagle 360 hp engines.

Those were V-12 engines, the first aircraft engines to be developed by Rolls-Royce (which later became very famous precisely for its aircraft engines). It took Alcock and Brown less than 16 hours to fly across the entire Atlantic Ocean. To be precise, it took them 15 hours and 57 minutes to fly to the coast of Ireland. They landed in a clearing which seemed like a green meadow out of the air but was actually a soft wetland, which made the landing problematic. But, the pilots were not injured. In total, they flew 3,040 km at an average speed of 185 km/h from Canada to Ireland. They received a prize of 10,000 pounds, which was an extremely large amount at the time. Indeed, they were both knighted a few days later by King George V. That gave them the right add the prefix “Sir” to their names. Facebook Comments Record-Setting Pioneers in the Golden Age of Aviation, 1919-39 Wiley Post sitting on the Winnie Mae Aviation Pioneers The Golden Age of Aviation 1919 - 1939 By Stephen Sherman , Jan.

2001. Updated June 27, 2011. Between the World Wars was the most exciting period in aviation history. Almost daily, pilots were breaking speed and distance records, designers were revolutionizing aircraft design, and manufacturers were building more and better planes. Barnstormers, air shows, and flying circuses fascinated the public and drew large crowds. Oceans and continents were conquered. And at no small risk. Many brave fliers set out to fly long distances and simply disappeared, usually swallowed up without a trace in the oceans. While everyone knows of Lindbergh's New York to Paris flight in 1927, other notable trips made headlines: the first trans-Pacific flight, the first London to Melbourne, and round-the-world flights. Also, the pilots and airplane designers broke speed records: both for long distance flights (e.g. Los Angeles to New York) and short flights over measured courses, for all-out maximum speeds. Air races, like the National Air Races in Cleveland, were an institution.

For these, designers built special racing planes, typically powered by radial engines, highly streamlined, resembling tapered cylinders, sometimes with the cockpit set way back, to give the pilot better visibility as the plane cornered around pylons at race courses. For long-distance flights, planes like the Spirit of St. Louis featured reliability, fuel capacity, light weight, and stability. Like many young men of the era, my Dad was fascinated by aviation; indeed he spent his working career at Pratt & Whitney Aircraft in East Hartford, Connecticut. Two of his aviation collections are included here, his photographs of airplanes that he took at local airports, and scans of the weekly cartoon Hall of Fame of the Air , featuring a notable pilot and a related aircraft in the Sunday color section of the newspaper. Aviators Across the Atlantic 1919 - A. C. Read May 16 to 31. Lt. Commander A.C. Read. U.S. Navy, and crew in Curtis flying boat NC-4, made a transatlantic flight from Newfoundland to Portugal by way of the Azores. They arrived in Plymouth, England, on May 31.

1919 - Alcock and Brown One of the first events to grab the public's attention was the June 14, 1919 transatlantic flight of Captain John Alcock and Lieutenant Arthur W. Brown. Both had flown in World War One and had been POW's - Alcock by the Turks, Brown by the Germans. The two British officers made the first non-stop flight across the Atlantic Ocean from St. Johns, Newfoundland to Clifton, Ireland, in about 16 hours. They flew a modified Vickers Vimy biplane bomber. The news of their flight spread quickly, and they received as heroes in London. They took the Daily Mail's prize of 10,000 pounds and were knighted by King George V. Check out the fine Long Flight website, detailing their historic flight. 1927 - Charles Lindbergh The most famous airplane flight of all time took place on May 20-21, 1927, when Charles A. Lindbergh became the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic, flying from New York Paris in a custom-built Ryan monoplane, the Spirit of St. Louis. Read about Lindbergh and his flight here .

(Today, the Spirit of St. Louis hangs in the main lobby of the National Air & Space Museum, in Washington D.C. I'll never forget the first time I walked in there, not really knowing what to expect. There, right above me - the Wright Brothers flyer, the Spirit of St. Louis, Chuck Yeager's Bell X-1, and the Apollo XI Command Module - the four most famous aircraft in history, all together, in public view. Wow! - SS) 1932 - Amelia Earhart Amelia Earhart became the first woman to across the Atlantic on June 18-19, 1928. While the flight garnered her a lot of publicity, she was little more than a passenger in the Fokker tri-motor "Friendship." In 1932, five years to the day after Lindbergh's solo flight across the Atlantic, she duplicated the feat - the first woman, and only the second person to do so at that time. In 1937, while attempting an around the world flight with navigator Fred Noonan, she disappeared over the Pacific. Read about Earhart's life and last flight here .

Air Mail Pilots On July 1, 1924, the U.S. Post Office started overnight airmail service between New York and San Francisco. Flying across country, over the Rocky mountains, was very dangerous, and the pilots who did the job were as brave as any combat fliers. To the Poles 1926/29 - Richard Byrd In 1926, Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett flew over the North Pole in a Ford Trimotor. In 1929, Byrd and Bernt Balchen followed this up with a flight over the South Pole. Around the World 1924 - U.S. Army Aviators In 1924, U.S. Army aviators undertook the first round-the-world flight, in four Douglas 'World Cruisers'. They had no thought of setting any speed record, nor of beating John Mears' 1913 record of 36 days (which he had set on the ground). They merely hoped to travel around the earth by air. They started from Seattle, on a westward course. 171 days laters, 3 of the Douglas planes finished the flight.

The airplanes and their crew were: Seattle (no.1) Lt. Erik H. Nelson (pilot) Lt. Jack Harding. 1929 - Graf Zeppelin In 1929, The Graf Zeppelin, LZ-127, made a world flight. Stops were made at Friedrichshafen, Tokyo and Los Angeles. It took 21 days, 7 hours, 34 minutes, a new record for round-the-world travel by any means. The next year the Graf Zeppelin made another famous flight, the Europa-Pan American Round Trip, commemorated in the famous U.S. airmail stamps. One of them, the $1.30 value, is shown here. They were only offered for sale of a limited time from U.S. post Offices, then withdrawn. While readily available, at a high price, they are among the most desirable items in a U.S. stamp collection. 1931/33 - Wiley Post In 1931, Wiley Post and navigator Harold Gatty circled the globe in the Winnie Mae, a Lockheed Vega.

Traveling over 15,000 miles, they pair didn't sleep for 8 days and 16 hours, thus smashing the Graf Zepplin's record of 21+ days. Two years later, between July 15 - 22, 1933, Post again took the Winnie Mae around the world, this time solo, in 7 days, 19 hours, at an average traveling speed (including refueling stops) of 83 miles per hour. Read about his life and last flight here . 1938 - Howard Hughes In 1938, Howard Hughes (the future reclusive billionaire), with four companions, circumnavigated the globe in record time, 3 days, 19 hours, and 8 minutes. No one had circumnavigated the globe since Wiley Post had done so 5 years before. Full article on Howard Hughes . Soon the world was consumed in the monumental struggles of World War Two . Aircraft development continued, even accelerated, but all for desperately needed military advances. A new, more techical, more corporate era had begun.

The Golden Age of Aviation, the era of individualists - barnstormers, Lindbergh, and endurance pilots - was over. © 1999- No. 1362: Flying across the Atlantic FLYING ACROSS THE ATLANTIC Click here for audio of Episode 1362. Today, we fly the Atlantic. The University of Houston's College of Engineering presents this series about the machines that make our civilization run, and the people whose ingenuity created them. Dozens of people had flown the Atlantic Ocean by 1927. Then Lindbergh made his historic nonstop flight we forgot about all that went before him. The first flight was made in May 1919 from New York to Plymouth, England. It was done in a six-man, four-engine, Navy flying boat which stopped in the Azores and Lisbon on the way. That same month, Raymond Orteig of New York City offered a $25,000 prize for the first nonstop airplane flight from New York to Paris. Just one month later, Alcock and Brown flew a two-engine airplane nonstop from St. John's, Newfoundland to Clifden, Ireland.

In July 1919 a British dirigible flew from England to New Jersey and back. Then, in 1922, two Portuguese aviators, Cabral and Coutinho, flew a single-engine British seaplane from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro. That's a longer flight than Lindbergh's but there's a catch. They didn't just stop over on the way; they actually changed airplanes on a small Atlantic island. More flights from New York to England followed in 1924. And in 1924 a Zeppelin dirigible flew from Friedrichshaven to Lakehurst, New Jersey. Finally, 1927 saw seven transatlantic heavier-than-air flights, of which Lindbergh's was the third. So what was so special about Lindbergh's flight? Well, it was the longest, nonstop, heavier-than-air, transatlantic flight and it was the first solo crossing. That's how he picked up the nickname, The Lone Eagle. And his flight finally fulfilled the difficult specific conditions of the Orteig prize which had, by then, been waiting more than eight years. If you've ever flown to Europe, you know how much longer it takes to get back.

Prevailing west winds oppose you on the return. No one managed a solo heavier-than-air flight from East-to-West until 1932. Then a pilot named James Mollison got from Ireland to New Brunswick. It was 1936 before Beryl Markham finally flew from England to the Canadian mainland. (She told about that in a beautifully written book, West by Night.) Hers was the last step that had to be taken before commercial transatlantic flights began in the late 1930's -- twenty years after the first transatlantic crossing and thirty-five years after the Wright brothers. Still, Lindbergh's flight is what that riveted public aware-ness; and it's worth mentioning his airplane. Lindbergh was a determined airmail pilot who finally found a like-minded designer at the tiny Ryan Airplane Company. Ryan specially built the Spirit of St. Louis for Lindbergh in just two months time. They called him Lucky Lindy. But his luck was the making of many people. It was finding the right engineer at the right time. It was the luck of having a great parade of risk-taking and courage before him.

But the word luck does not apply to the courageous focused intensity Lindbergh brought to the one flight we remember. I'm John Lienhard, at the University of Houston, where we're interested in the way inventive minds work. (Theme music) Angelucci, E., World Encyclopedia of Civil Aircraft: From Leonardo da Vinci to the Present. New York: Crown Publishers, 1982. Markham, B., West with the Night. San Francisco: North Point Press, 1983 (1st ed., 1942.) This is a substantially revised version of Episode 37 . First Across the Atlantic | Just a Little Further Just a Little Further By Marcie October 1, 2015 Atlantic Ocean Passage 1 Comment This is our third crossing of the Atlantic and each time we’ve crossed, we wondered how the sailors who did it for the first time managed. They didn’t have any GPS or chartplotters … or charts for that matter. Heck, they didn’t even have longitude and latitude figured out, yet they set out into the unknown and sailed across a vast ocean not knowing what they’d find on the other side.

Not that we always know where we’re going, but at least we have a vague idea of what to expect. In school, we pretty much gave Christopher Columbus and his crew, all the credit for “discovering” America, as if the indigenous folks didn’t know it was there. What’s more, we learned at the Dias Museum that Chris and his brothers, devious as they were, had actually stolen the Martellus map of 1490 and altered it in order to get funding for their voyage of discovery. Pesky scamps, huh? History tells us that the Vikings were probably the first Europeans to touch foot in North America . Icelander Leif Eriksson, famous son of the Norseman Erik the Red, explored in the late 10th century, five centuries before Christopher Columbus was stealing maps. My research indicates that Leif actually had knowledge of a Norse explorer, Bjarni Herjolsson who had discovered the mainland of the Americas c.986. The Vikings really got around.

Now here’s the surprising one … The great Muslim historian and geographer, Abu al-Hasan al-Masudi wrote in 956 of a voyage in 889 from al-Andalus (Muslim Spain). The passage westward lasted for several months and they eventually found a large landmass across the ocean where they traded with the natives, and then returned to Europe. Al-Masudi records this land across the ocean in his famous map and refers to it as “the unknown land”. Sorry, but Muslim history never made into our classrooms. Okay … enough history. How about some Atlantic crossing trivia? On 14–15 June 1919, British aviators Alcock and Brown made the first non-stop transatlantic flight. Shortly thereafter, Major George Herbert Scott of the RAF flew the rigid Airship R34, with crew and passengers, from East Fortune, Scotland to Mineola, New York in 1919. Charles Lindberg in the “Spirit of St.

Louis” departed Roosevelt Field, New York, on May 20, 1927 on his successful attempt to fly nonstop from New York City to France, completing the first solo crossing of the Atlantic in 33.5 hours. The first successful transatlantic flight in a balloon was the Double Eagle II from Presque Isle, Maine, to Miserey, France in 1978. Nine of Cups will break no records crossing the Atlantic, but we’re hoping we manage to get to the other side. Follow Clifden Clifden Find information, photos & videos by location. Add your photos, text, videos, etc. to this page. Aspects of Galway City and County Aspects of Galway City and County How to do a Project How to do a Project The Capital of Connemara Enlarge image In the early 1900s, the world's gaze was on Clifden, the biggest town in Connemara. It was the scene of two world firsts. Clifden is not an old town. It was established in the early 1800s by the local landlord John D'Arcy.

D'Arcy also built a castle, the ruins of which can still be seen. � The Marconi Station On October 17, 1907, a very important event happened a few miles outside of Clifden. The first commercial transatlantic message was transmitted from Guglielmo Marconi's Station in Clifden to his North American complex in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, Canada. � Alcock and Brown John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown were British aviators who made the first non-stop flight across the Atlantic Ocean in June 1919. � Enlarge image The pair took off from St. John's, Newfoundland, on June 14, 1919. They crash landed in a bog outside Clifden 16 hours and 27 minutes after take off. The flight was trecherous and nearly ended in disaster several times. Brown had to climb out onto the wings to remove ice which was building up on the engines. They were treated as heros for completing the challange and received a prize of �10,000. � A Changing Libraries Initiative - This site and all content is made available under respective copyrights. See the copyright statement for details.

Supported by the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government. Aviation: The Pioneer Period Facebook Aviation: The Pioneer Period Newfoundland has played an important role in the development of long-distance air travel. As the most easterly place in North America, it became a popular taking-off point for aviation pioneers attempting to cross the Atlantic by air in 1919. It also served as a refueling point for round-the-world attempts in the 1920s. Amelia Earhart made two record-setting flights from Newfoundland, in 1928 and 1932. The advent of passenger flight in the 1930s brought the pioneer period to a close, but established Newfoundland as a major stopover between Europe and North America. Taking off from Lester's Field, 14 June 1919 Photographer: Holloway. Courtesy of Archives and Special Collections Division (Coll. 137.05.04.004), Queen Elizabeth II Library, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, NL.

Trans-Atlantic Flight In April 1913, the London Daily Mail offered a £10,000 prize for piloting the first non-stop transatlantic flight between Great Britain and any point in Canada, the United States, or Newfoundland. The competition was suspended during the First World War, but reopened when peace was restored in 1918. Newfoundland was the preferred taking-off point because it was closer to Europe than anywhere else in North America and prevailing winds favoured a west-to-east voyage. In the spring of 1919, four teams arrived to compete for the prize and a place in aviation history. They were: 1. Australian pilot Harry Hawker and Scottish navigator Kenneth F. Mackenzie-Grieve; 2. British aviators Frederick Raynham (pilot) and C.W.F. Morgan (navigator); 3. the Handley Page Company Group, led by British pilot Mark Kerr (Handley Page was an American aircraft manufacturer); and 4. British aviators John Alcock (pilot) and Arthur Whitten Brown (navigator). Alcock and Brown with Vickers Vimy Biplane, 13 June 1919 Photographer unknown.

Courtesy of Archives and Special Collections Division (Coll. 137.05.04.001), Queen Elizabeth II Library, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, NL. Much work had to be done before a flight could be attempted. Newfoundland had no airstrips, so teams had to scout for a suitable taking-off points (such as a large field) and level the ground. They also had to assemble their aircraft, which were shipped to the island in pieces, and then perform a series of test flights. Poor weather conditions also slowed things down. At the same time, the United States Navy Air Corps had stationed personnel at Trepassey to prepare for its own transatlantic effort. This was not connected to the Daily Mail contest. Instead, the Navy planned to fly a Curtiss NC-4 flying boat from the United States to England with multiple stopovers for refueling and maintenance. On 8 May 1919, Lieutenant Commander Albert C. Read and his crew departed Rockaway, New York, and landed at Plymouth, England, on 31 May, with stopovers at Massachusetts, Halifax, Trepassey, the Azores Islands, and Lisbon, Portugal. Lieutenant Commander Albert C.

Read (far left) and Crew. n.d. From The St. John's Daily Star 10 July 1919: 9. Read had successfully piloted the world's first transatlantic flight, but the race to fly nonstop across the Atlantic continued at Newfoundland. Two unsuccessful attempts were made on 18 May 1919. Hawker and Mackenzie-Grieve departed from a field in Mount Pearl, but an engine failure forced them to land in the Atlantic Ocean 14 hours and 1,770 kilometres later. They were rescued by a Danish freighter. Raynham and Morgan's Martinsyde biplane crashed moments after takeoff from a field near Quidi Vidi Lake in St. John's, because it could not carry the heavy gasoline load needed to cross the Atlantic. Sopwith Atlantic Biplane Flown by Hawker and Mackenzie-Grieve, 1919 Photographer unknown. Reproduced by permission of Archives and Special Collections Division (Coll. 232 03.05), Queen Elizabeth II Library, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, NL.

No further attempts were made until 14 June 1919, when Alcock and Brown took off from Lester's Field near St. John's at 1:45 p.m. in a Vickers Vimy biplane fitted with two Rolls-Royce engines. The two landed nose down in a bog at Galway, Ireland 16 hours later. They received the Daily Mail prize for completing the world's first nonstop transatlantic flight and were knighted by King George V. Kerr's team abandoned its plans to fly a World War I Handley Page bomber across the Atlantic. Round-The-World Flights Circumnavigation drew the spotlight in the 1920s. A team of aviators with the US Army Air Services made the first round-the-world flight in 1924. Four Douglas World Cruiser biplanes departed Seattle Washington on 6 April, but only two completed the journey - one crashed into a mountain while flying through fog on 30 April and the other sank in the North Atlantic on 3 August after losing all oil pressure. Both crews survived.

The remaining two planes, named the New Orleans and Chicago, stopped at Icy Tickle, Labrador on 31 August and Hawkes Bay, Newfoundland on 2 September before successfully completing their journey on 28 September 1924. Newfoundland played an important role in future circumnavigation attempts. In 1927, Fred Koehler of Detroit's Stinson Aircraft Corporation identified Harbour Grace as a potential refueling point for round-the-world flights. The community launched a fundraising campaign to build an airport and the Newfoundland government contributed $14,500. The inaugural flight was made by Edward F. Schlee and William S. Brock on 27 August 1927 aboard the monoplane The Pride of Detroit. The pair's circumnavigation attempt, however, ended in failure after an engine defect grounded the plane at Tokyo on 11 September. The Pride of Detroit at Harbour Grace, 1927 Photographer unknown. Reproduced by permission of Archives and Special Collections Division (Coll. 232 03.05), Queen Elizabeth II Library, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, NL.

American pilot Wiley Post and Australian navigator Harold Gatty were more successful in 1930 when they flew their Lockheed Vega, named Winnie Mae, around the world in record setting time (eight days, 15 hours, and 51 minutes). The 24,903-kilometre voyage began on 23 June at Long Island, New York and took the pair to several stopover points, including Harbour Grace. Amelia Earhart Newfoundland also played a role in Amelia Earhart's historic flights. On 17 June 1928, Earhart became the first women to cross the Atlantic by air. The Fokker F7 aircraft named Friendship took off from Trepassey with pilot Wilmen Stultz, co-pilot/mechanic Louis Gordon, and passenger Earhart on board. It touched down at Burry Point, Wales 20 hours and 40 minutes later. On 20 May 1932, Earhart piloted the world's first transatlantic solo flight by a woman. She took off from Harbour Grace in a red Lockheed Vega and landed at Northern Ireland almost 15 hours later.

Amelia Earhart at Harbour Grace, 20 May 1932 Photographer: Ernest Maunder. Courtesy of Library and Archives Canada (PA-057854). By then, the pioneering phase of transatlantic flight was nearing its end. Technological advances had made aircraft, meteorology, and wireless communications more sophisticated and reliable than in the past. As long-distance flight became increasingly safe and commonplace, government and industry expressed interest in establishing regular passenger and mail services. Newfoundland's location meant it would play an important role in the development of a transatlantic commercial air service. What 24 hours of transatlantic flights looks like What 24 hours of transatlantic flights looks like Watch | Watch: The plane-filled skies above the Atlantic 00:32 Oliver Smith , Digital Travel Editor 7 June 2016 • 4:23pm Almost 100 years on from the first non-stop transatlantic flight – made by John Alcock and Arthur Brown, a pair of British aviators, in 1919 – the skies between Europe and North America have become a far more crowded place.

Between two and three thousand aircraft now cross the pond every day and the video above, captured by the website flightradar24.com, shows what one of those 24-hour windows looks like. Around the world by budget airline The clip starts at 01:00 GMT, when the vast majority of traffic is eastbound. As the morning wears on, however, Europe wakes up and many more flights begin to travel in the opposite direction. The neat lines of aircraft demonstrate how they all use clear, pre-defined flight paths. These paths – called the North Atlantic Tracks – change up to twice a day depending on shifting winds and traffic flow, to ensure flights are fuel efficient and safely separated in areas where there is less radar coverage. AT A GLANCE | The early years of transatlantic flight It may come as a surprise to see how far north many planes go, even passing over Greenland. This is because, despite the impression a 2D map might give, the quickest routes between European cities and North American ones is often over the Arctic. TOP 10 | Busiest transatlantic routes “If you have a globe handy, however, the logic of great circles is very apparent.

Measuring with a piece of string, it’s obvious that the shortest distance between New York and Hong Kong, for instance, is not westerly, as it would seem on a map, but pretty much straight north, up into the Arctic, and then straight south. Over the top, in other words. secrets of air travel “That’s the extreme, but the principle applies to many long-range pairings, and this is why passengers between America and Europe discover themselves not just high up, but high up — over Newfoundland, Labrador and occasionally into the icy realm of Greenland.

Across the Pacific, same idea: a flight from Los Angeles to Beijing will touch the Aleutian Islands and the easternmost portions of Russia.” Across the South Atlantic in 1922 | Daily Planet | Air & Space Magazine Air & Space Magazine Contact Privacy Policy Terms of Use Across the South Atlantic in 1922 On this day in 1922, a pair of Portuguese aviators, Sacadura Cabral and Gago Coutinho, set off on the first flight across the southern Atlantic airspacemag.com March 30, 2009 On this day in 1922, a pair of Portuguese aviators, Sacadura Cabral and Gago Coutinho, set off on the first flight across the southern Atlantic , from Lisbon to Recife, Brazil. They made it, but with plenty of down time for repairs and waiting on replacement aircraft. They finally finished the 5,100-mile voyage at Rio de Janeiro on June 17, after a total of 62 hours flying. Along the way they lost two airplanes—their original Fairey III D hydroplane, "Lusitania," which sank in the ocean off the tiny rocks of St.

Peter and St. Paul , and a second Fairey, "Portugal" which didn't get much farther before it, too, ditched in the sea (the pilots bobbed in the water for hours before being rescued by a passing freighter). The final leg of the trip, from the islands of Fernando Noronha to Brazil, was in a Fairey 17 named "Santa Cruz." Cabral, a Naval aviator, had been inspired by two Atlantic crossings three years earlier—a U.S. Navy journey from New York to England in a Curtiss NC-4 flying boat, and John Alcock and Arthur Brown's first non-stop crossing from Newfoundland to Ireland, accomplished in only 16 hours on June 15, 1919. At Cabral's suggestion, the Portuguese and Brazilian governments started planning a South Atlantic crossing within days of Alcock and Brown's trip. But first, they had to figure out how to navigate to a hard-to-find refueling stop like Fernando Noronha (the biggest island is just six miles long) after crossing 1,450 miles of open ocean.

Cabral's friend Gago Coutinho, a Naval commander and cartographer, developed a new kind of sextant that used a water bubble to create an artificial horizon, and it was this use of internal navigation that made the trip possible. At the time, Charles Lindbergh was 20 years old. And though he probably hadn't heard of Cabral and Coutinho at the time, the man who five years later would make the most famous Atlantic crossing in history took his first airplane ride on April 9, when the Portuguese aviators were already halfway across the ocean. Like this article?

Question: Which pair of British aviators made the first non-stop flight across the Atlantic in 1919?
Answer: ALCOCK & BROWN